Meet the pro-lifer who says 'the pill kills'

Women who take the pill choose partners who share a similar genetic profile causing them to lose interest in sex and become more likely to be the victim of violent assault and murder.

It is just one of the unconventional theories of Dr Angela Lanfranchi, an American pro-life campaigner who also pushes the debunked link between abortion and breast cancer.

Dr Lanfranchi is set to speak at next month's "World Congress of Families" event in Melbourne where she will share the stage with federal Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews, and a number of Victorian Liberals, including state Attorney-General Robert Clark and anti-abortion campaigner and Victorian upper house MP Bernie Finn.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews. Photo: Jeffrey Chan

Women's health advocates on Friday said pro-life campaigners like Dr Lanfranchi were entitled to their views but called on members of government not to endorse flawed medical theories through their presence at the families congress.

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Mr Andrews is an international ambassador for the World Congress of Families which is organised by a US-based group dedicated to preventing abortion and the decriminalisation of homosexuality. The minister will open and close the August 30 event.

The Coalition's leader in the Senate, Eric Abetz, and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi are listed in the program as supporters of the congress.

Controversial pro-lifer Angela Lanfranchi.

Dr Lanfranchi, who founded the New Jersey-based Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, will talk on the link between abortion and breast cancer - a theory rejected by Cancer Australia, the World Health Organisation, the US National Cancer Institute, Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and health authorities in Victoria and NSW.

Her views on contraception are just as controversial. In 2012, Dr Lanfranchi wrote that women who take the oral contraceptive prefer men who are genetically very similar to them. "They choose men who could be a very close relative," she wrote.

As a consequence, women on the pill rejected sexual advances from their partner more frequently than couples with dissimilar DNA and reported having more partners outside their relationship.

Victoria Attorney-General Robert Clark. Photo: Luis Ascui

"In other words, in their relationships they had fewer sexual encounters, wanted sex less and were more likely to engage in infidelity or adultery. Less sex, bad sex and infidelity is a recipe for a bad relationship and conflict that could easily lead to even deadly violence," she wrote.

"Conversely, other studies have shown that men find women who do not take the pill more attractive."

Dr Lanfranchi has also published a "fact sheet" on the four ways the "pill kills", claiming it leads to blood clots, lethal infections, cancer and violent death.

In 2010, the British Medical Journal published a study that found a higher rate of violent or accidental death among oral contraceptive users but reported that its authors were unable to explain the finding.

Dr Lanfranchi said a letter to the editor in the journal helped shape her view that the pill alters a woman's "baseline preferences for men".

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